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Nobody ever heard of the Irish-speaking peasants taking the smallest interest in their language. The whole revival business is the work of an English-speaking middle class, who never stop asking the Government to pay them for doing it." That was the second occasion on which I came near quarrelling with Mrs. Ascher. Yet I am not a man who quarrels easily. Like St.
A little later another Irish-speaking labourer a friend of Michael's joined us, and we lay for hours talking and arguing on the grass. The day was unbearably sultry, and the sand and the sea near us were crowded with half-naked women, but neither of the young men seemed to be aware of their presence.
The Gaelic revival sends many of us to school in Irish-speaking districts, and, if it did nothing else, at least it would have sent us to school in pleasant places among the most lovable preceptors.
There is nothing better known about Ireland than this fact: that illiteracy is more frequent among the Irish Catholic peasantry than in any other class of the British population; and that especially upon the Irish-speaking peasant does the stigma lie. Yet it is, perhaps, as well to inquire a little more precisely what is meant by an illiterate.
Not the least important work of the Irish Literary Revival has been done by translators, who have put into English the old Gaelic romances and the folklore still current among the little remnant of Irish-speaking country folk. Dr. Douglas Hyde is in the forefront of this group.
If to be literate is to possess a knowledge of the language, literature, and historical traditions of a man's own country and this is no very unreasonable application of the word then this Irish-speaking peasantry has a better claim to the title than can be shown by most bodies of men.
One who has a knowledge of Irish can easily get evidence of its quickening power on the Irish mind. Travel in an Irish-speaking district and hail one of its old people in English, and you get in response a dull "Good-day, Sir." Salute him in Irish and you touch a secret spring.
Two wild-eyed men, apparently breathing slaughter, suddenly desisted, reining in their fury and walking off amicably together. An Irish-speaking policeman explained that one having sold the other a pig the buyer was asking for twopence off, and that they now departed to drink the amount between them.
The common people, where English was understood, were slow in taking alarm at these masked innovations; in the Irish-speaking districts three-fourths of the whole country they were only heard of as rumours from afar, but the clergy, secular and regular, were not long left in doubt as to where such steps must necessarily lead.
The common people, where English was understood, were slow in taking alarm at these masked innovations; in the Irish-speaking districts three-fourths of the whole country they were only heard of as rumours from afar, but the clergy, secular and regular, were not long left in doubt as to where such steps must necessarily lead.
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